Syria presses crackdown, Asad told to reform or quit

Pro-regime Syrians wave national flags and portraits of President Asad Syrian security forces killed one civilian and wounded four in the flashpoint central city of Homs on Monday as EU foreign ministers told President Bashar al-Asad to reform or step down .
After a bloody weekend during which dozens of civilians clamouring for change were shot dead by security forces, most of them in Homs, the European Union threatened to slap more sanctions on Damascus.
Several coaches packed with security service agents entered the Khalidiyeh neighbourhood of Homs on Monday and afterwards gunfire was heard, said the head of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights, Abdel Karim Rihawi.
The wounded were taken to the Al-Bir Hospital, he added.
Activists warned that the fighting in Homs, where more than 30 people were killed in fierce clashes between Christians, Sunni Muslims and Alawites from Asad's minority community, could spark a new and dangerous turning point in more than four months of pro-democracy protests.
"It is a dangerous signal of the break-up of Syrian society," Rihawi said.
"There is danger of a division of society that really threatens national unity," he told AFP by telephone.
Human rights activist Rami Abdel Rahman said the fighting broke out after three regime supporters kidnapped last week were killed and their dismembered bodies returned to their relatives on Saturday.
"These clashes are a dangerous development that undermines the revolution and serves the interests of its enemies who want it to turn into a civil war," said Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
"The two sides started out beating each other with sticks, but then firearms were used," he added.
Rihawi said shops were torched across the city and troops moved into Homs on Sunday to restore order.
In Hama, another protest centre further north, more than 50 protesters were freed under an agreement between the new governor and residents, Rihawi said.
Residents agreed to lift their barricades and reopen their shops in return for an agreement by the authorities to release detainees and end their campaign of arrests.
A similar agreement was reached between army commanders and residents of the town of Al-Bukamal, on the border with Iraq, which had been surrounded by troops dropped by helicopter on Sunday, Rihawi said.
The army agreed to withdraw in return for residents' lifting roadblocks and the surrendering weapons they had seized from police stations.
The pro-government newspaper Al-Watan described Al-Bukamal as a border town "which has become a passage for weapons and money smuggling."
According to the London-based Syrian Observatory at least one civilian was killed in Al-Bukamal on Saturday when security forces opened fire to break up an anti-regime demonstration.
In Brussels, foreign ministers adopted a declaration warning that as long as the crackdown on protests continues, "the EU will pursue and carry forward its current policy, including through sanctions targeted against those responsible for or associated with the violent repression."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the situation "is deteriorating."
"It is really up to the Syrian people but I believe he should reform or step aside," he said.
Dutch European affairs minister Ben Knapen echoed the call. "President Asad must stop the repression now and start real democratic reforms or relinquish power."
Activists say the Syrian government's crackdown has left more than 1,400 civilians dead. Thousands more have been jailed.